Who Can Lead?

Among New Testament scholars, there is some debate about who wrote this letter, she said – whether it was the apostle Paul (most scholars think not), or someone else writing in his name a generation or two after Paul’s death. Whoever it was, Gench said with a grin that she knows with “absolute certainty” that “it was a man. I have no question about that,” in part because of the passages in the second chapter instructing women to be silent and submissive in church, saying that women should not teach men and that they would be saved through childbearing.

There also are hints in these passages that all was not well with the church – although exactly what was wrong isn’t spelled out, Gench said. For example, telling women to be silent and not to teach is a pretty good sign that ‘”they’re talking, they’re teaching, they’re acting as if they’re equals.” The first letter to Timothy was written, she said, as though “there are real problems and needs that are being addressed” in the church’s thinking, in management, maybe in morals.

So 1 Timothy gives lists of qualities for bishops, elders and deacons, without specifically describing the work those people do.

These are stringent standards, Gench said – among other things, be sensible, above reproach, hospitable, not greedy.

A little wine is permitted – but John Calvin cautioned, “avoid intemperance and guzzling,” Gench said.

There is no “confessional litmus test” given, said John Wilkinson, a pastor from Rochester, N.Y., although there is reference to “the mystery of our religion” and bishops are warned “not to fall into disgrace and the snare of the devil.”

.And Mark Achtemeier, a professor of systematic theology at the University of Dubuque Seminary, said it could be argued that when one draws into the presence of God, “it changes you,” so the behaviors described as qualifications for church leadership could be seen as signs that someone is “on the path of truth.”

So what does all this mean for the task force’s work – what lessons can be drawn from these passages to inform the direction of the PC(USA) today?

The church is not an island – others are watching, weighing its actions, said Jong Hyeong Lee, a pastor from Chicago. If the behavior of church leaders is exemplary, the broader culture does notice, and people say, “That’s the kind of person I want to be,” Achtemeier said.

Conversely, there is such an expectation that church leaders will lead exemplary lives that “when they drop the ball, it’s often used as a way of saying how the faith is not really very strong,” said Milton “Joe” Coalter, vice-president of library and information technology systems at Louisville Seminary. Mike Loudon, a pastor from Florida, said a church he formerly served once chose as an elder a person who managed a restaurant from a chain that some people don’t find acceptable. He heard people report that their friends described that congregation as “a joke” because it had an elder who managed that kind of a restaurant.

The PC(USA) tends to use more visible, tangible qualifications for its leaders – “the kind of thing that would hold up in a court of law,” said Jack Haberer, a pastor from Houston. But the list in this passage requires self-examination, said Vicky Curtiss, a pastor from Iowa – for who can honestly say they’re always hospitable or even-tempered?

Scott Anderson, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, said when he was a pastor, sometimes people were elected to the session who were of fine character, but were basically ineffective as elders. Is good character enough to be a church leader? he asked.

And Achtemeier said there is “absolutely no sense in this passage that ordination is a right, or sort of a crowning capstone of a life of Christian discipleship. There is, he said, “no sense of entitlement about it whatsoever.”